131 THE W A YW AR.D PR.ESS LONDON F OR those in London who read more than one paper, It was hard to tell on the Wednesday morn- ing after Sir Anthony Eden's cease-fire announcement, whether the end of the shooting in Egypt represented an ac- knowledgment of politIcal bankruptc) or the magnanimous conclusion of an episode of triumph unparalleled in Brit- ish history. The apparent difference of opinion among the journalists surprIsed me when the papers arrived with my boiled eggs and tea, because I had spent the previous evening at a Law-Not-War meeting sponsored by the Labour Party in the Albert Hall. Originally arranged as a protest against the Government's war policy, the meeting, scheduled for seven-thirty, had turned itself into a Victory- With- Vigilance celebration, because of the cease-fire announcement at six. The victory , however, was not that of the troops in Egypt but that of the seven thousand people in the hall. Their satisfaction was patent; they expressed their conviction that Sir i\.n- thony had led the country into a dis- creditable disaster but that they, and the portion of the press that took the same point of view, had prevented him from turning the disaster into a catas- trophe. Mr. Hugh Gaitskell, the head of the Labour Party and the chief speaker of the evening, appeared to share this impression. Mr. Galtskell, who resembles an elegant Huey Long with an astonishing- ly different accent, accepted without demur the intimation of the other Labour spokesmen that the Tories had made a mess of things. The audience sang "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow," meaning Gaitskell, and then switched to a chant of "Eden must GO!" Mrs. Gaitskell, small and pretty, looked proud and happy; I am morally certain that she thought thIngs were going well. The only discord sound- ed after her husband, mag- nanimously offering a small concession to Sir Anthony, said, "Of course, we all know Nasser is a dictator." An Egyptian who looked like a stranded Channel swimmer rose in the third row and shouted, "No! He is not dic- E,DE,N MUST GO-OR. MUST HE,? tator ! You don't know anything about it." Except for the Egyptian, every- body was happy, and even he cheered up when Mr. Gaitskell said that al- though the Prime Minister had jeop- ardized the hves of the British residents of Egypt, none had been harmed. "We are very generous! " the Channel swim- mer shouted. When the Labour leader said that the Suez Canal was now blocked because of Sir Anthony's action, the Egyptian crowed, "And now he will have to undo it! " I therefore went to bed believing that the Government had suffered a reverse, and the Dailv Mirror, the first paper I looked at, did nothing to correct my im- pression. The Mirror, a tabloid, has the largest daily circulation in Britain- about five million-and is pro-Labour. It carried a front-page editorial that started out: EDEN'S WAR: BACK TO SANITY Thank God the shootlng has stopped in Suez This is a last-minute victory for the forces of decency. Whom shall we thank for this? Thank the United Nations. T hank the Labour Party which chal- lenged Eden at every move. T hank America President Eisenhow- er's warnings to Eden played a big part in bringing him to his senses. [To read a kInd word for America this week almost star- tled me out of my senses] Thank public opinion in this country- and in the free world. Eden's War, which was launched to de- pose Nasser and seize control of the Suez Canal for Britain and France, shocked world opinion Only four days ago, Eden was still lay- ing down conditions and proclaiming that his attack on Egypt would continue until he had his way Last nIght, he went back to the path of negotiation. What a calamIty that he ever left it I T ORD BEAVERBROOK'S Daily Express, L with a cIrculatIon of four million, took a dIfferent VIew of how things had gone. The first page placed the accent on military operatIons, rather than on what I had feared Beaverbrook might consIder their premature termination. On the previous morning, the Express had called the landings "breathtaking events which testify to a magnificent militar} operatIon." But, it had added, "the events at Port Said immensely sat- isfactory as they are, can only be a beginning. . . . The whole Canal Zone must be brought under the control of British and French troops, so that the vital waterway may no longer be imperilled by the war between Arab and Israeli.... There is still much IlEA "No.1 no, no, Miss Palmer' F1rst you wonder what it is then you fall1n love "